On September 19, Lattice drew thousands of HR professionals for the fourth annual Resources for Humans Virtual Conference. The event featured insights from more than 50 thought leaders and innovators across the HR landscape. Speakers addressed topics including artificial intelligence, performance management, and C-Suite alignment — all supporting this year’s theme, a culture of excellence.
Want to relive the event? You can replay the sessions on demand. Here are our top three takeaways from this year’s conference.
1. A culture of excellence starts within HR.
In a session with Lattice’s Chief People Officer Cara Brennan Allamano, renowned leadership expert Simon Sinek discussed the link between high performance and fostering a culture of excellence.
“If you look at high-performance organizations, they tend to be highly team-oriented, values-based, and team-focused, which then yields high performance,” said Sinek, who is the author of bestselling books The Infinite Game, Start With Why, and Leaders Eat Last. “When I hear ‘culture of excellence,’ it sounds like it's an excellent place to work.”
He explained that a culture of excellence requires performance and trust — the permission and support to do one’s best work while trusting team members enough that they’re empowered to do their own work and make decisions as well.
Sinek outlined two crucial steps HR teams can take to build and sustain a culture of excellence: hiring the right people and developing human skills.
“Too many companies do not have enough curriculum to teach people things like how to give and receive feedback, how to be an active listener, how to have difficult conversations, or how to have an effective confrontation,” Sinek noted. “We just throw people into these positions and expect them to be good at it. We have to teach people human skills if we want them to be good at them.”
And when HR teams get bogged down in the details of their people programs, Sinek encouraged them to anchor themselves in their mission and values.
"We're here to see the people in our organization rise,” said Sinek. “Our job is to figure out all the ways — formal, informal — all of the ways that we can work to see that our people can be the best versions of themselves.”
2. Alignment with the C-Suite requires mutual trust.
Allamano also led a conversation with members of Lattice’s new Chief People Officers Council on how they build productive, trusting relationships with the rest of executive leadership.
“Trust is often built in small increments over time,” explained Gianna Driver, chief human resources officer at Exabeam. “When we can go to hard places and lean into conflict — but be really mindful and thoughtful about how we do it — most often there's a stronger and more trusting relationship on the other side.”
The group agreed that the goal of developing trusting relationships isn’t just to push HR’s agenda, but broadly to build strategic partnerships and mutual understanding of each other’s goals, all of which tie directly into business outcomes.
While many HR leaders may feel inclined to wait a few quarters to gather data on the ROI of new people programs, Allamano noted that “folks who have been able to jump in and prove outcomes early are the folks who end up getting that trust from a business side.”
“It's about actually delivering value for a CEO,” said Alan Cairns, CPO at GoCardless. “Be really clear about what you want to achieve…building a roadmap that says what you're doing now, what you're going to do next, and what you'll do in the future is a great way to be able to show people the thing that matters most to them.”
Building strong one-on-one relationships with leaders across the business can help HR professionals be seen as crucial strategic partners for delivering business outcomes.
“Trust is not a given,” explained Valentina Gissin, CPO at Garner Health. “When you actually earn it, not only are you able to be just as strategic and make just as much impact, but you actually can see it through and know that it's happening and track the impact.”
By tracking that impact and building the confidence to demonstrate it, HR leaders can position themselves as a trusted partner, prove ROI, and deliver better outcomes across the business.
“Any business decision — whether it's a new product, a release, a strategy — involves people,” said Driver. “And that is then our opportunity to enter the conversation.”
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Those were just some of the highlights from this year’s virtual conference. To get the full picture, replay the sessions on demand.
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